Tag Archives: buccin

In the early nineteenth century, some French and Belgian instrument makers manufacturered a fanciful adaptation of the trombone known as the buccin. In place of the standard bell section, it had a widely curving tube ending with a gaudily painted serpent’s or dragon’s head. The same makers also put monster’s heads on serpents, serpent bassoons, and other precursors of the ophicleide. Judging from the trombone parts in French music during or after the Revolution, the was played loudly, primarily in the lower register. As the French used a very small-bore trombone, its sound must have been coarse and at times … Continue reading →